Plots
by The Cashew Nuts
Summary: When Hyuuga Neji turns up at the Hospital at three in the morning there has to be a scheme behind his actions. Coincidentally, Sakura is scheduled to work at the same time he arrives …NejiSaku


Haruno Sakura adjusted herself in the cold plastic chair she was seated in as she waited in the hospitals quiet coffee room. At least, it was quiet at this time of night...morning.

The pink haired medic nin yawned and checked her watch with disdain. Her friends told her she was lucky to be slacking off here rather than out roughing it like them on missions but she had long since decided that compared to the night shift, any A-Grade mission became a walk in the park.

Especially at times like this when the only new patients she had were the drunks off the street and all her old ones only called for a nurse to help them to the bathroom. Patience was a virtue Sakura found herself lacking after her time spent with Naruto along with her past fortitude for healthy eating. Damn she wanted Ramen...

"Sakura? We have a patient in." Sakura stood up hurriedly knocking her seat backwards upon the other woman's entrance.

"Situation?" she questioned simply and professionally pulling on her white coat noting subconsciously it was inside out but hardly caring with the amount of sleep she'd had over the past few days.

"ANBU reporting in with injuries," The nurse answered handing her a clipboard.

"I didn't realise we had anyone returning from missions," She flipped through the papers on the board as they marched purposefully through the swinging doors that separated the Hospital's staff room from the rest of the building.

'Hyuuga Neji.'

"Hell, I didn't even realise he _was_ on a mission," As the Hokage's apprentice she had always assumed herself well informed of mission schedules and the information had benefited her in the past through her healing. If she knew where a ninja had been and what they had been doing, it made it easier to guess why they were unconscious and bleeding from a head wound and exactly how to proceed best.

Plus, she liked to think herself quite a lot closer to Neji than most people and he generally told her if he was off to do anything life threatening. Once she had a chance to sit down and spend time with that arrogant ass he had really opened up and talked to her.

Amazing what some of the drugs they had at this place could do...for pain of course. The added side effects didn't always turn out too badly though, Sakura pondered silently. She remembered his huge white (albeit slightly dazed) eyes blinking up at her earnestly as she awkwardly plaited one side of his long, silky chocolate hair and his bare chest moving every time he took a labored breath...

"I just get it from the secretary," Her companion said throwing her arms up in surrender. Sakura tried not to look startled or blush by the sudden interruption to her musings.

"Perhaps just a training injury then," Sakura looked down at her watch again. "At three in the morning."

"Wouldn't put it past him," Sakura heard her mumble and they both laughed. "He was here yesterday morning too actually, at a much more reasonable hour though."

"Is he okay?" She asked suddenly concerned.

"Yeah, just asked something then left."

"Hm."

Sakura was left alone when the nurse branched off down another hall and entered she reached the front reception a few moments later.

The sleepy secretary pointed with one lazy thumb towards the man perched on the waiting chair in an obvious attempt to try and look dignified.

As dignified as he could look in his sleeping yukata.

A pleasingly fitting yukata Sakura noted before she almost physically slapped herself. She strode over.

"Are you able to accompany me to a room without assistance?" She asked pleasantly.

"Of course I am," He answered gruffly as he rose not sounding...the happiest she'd ever heard him. Did he think she enjoyed being up at this hour of the morning as much as he seemingly did?

"I expected it to be a mission or training but it doesn't seem..." He followed her with about as much excitement as his earlier tone had displayed.

"Your intelligence out credits you, no wonder you got this job." She tried not to smile; he was insulting her not being intentionally insufferably cute.

"Here we are," she said in an equally as dark tone to mock him fondly as she opened the door.

As expected her raging humour and wit was not appreciated.

He seated himself on the bed and she tried not to watch the bottom of his yukata rise with his movements.

"So, what seems to be the problem?" She asked her eyes scanning his form for...injuries.

"This," he said thrusting his hand out that had previously, without her noticing, been shoved behind his back.

With a slight hesitation, Sakura took a step forward and examined his upturned palm cradling it in her own hands.

"What happened?" She asked with genuine curiosity examining several large gashes in his hand.

She looked up at him when he didn't reply and watched his jaw clench and forehead furrow slightly.

"I broke a glass," He was finally able to force out with what sounded like more pain to his pride than the cuts were causing to his hand.

Sakura kept a thumb rule not to laugh at patient's wounds and generally she didn't want to.

Smirk and splutter however, was acceptable in cases such as these.

"Oh, how..." She relished the opportunity to say this to the genius of the Hyuuga clan "_clumsy _of you."

He turned his head a way in annoyance and impatiently jerked his outstretched hand a few more times.

"Have you finished your general tirade of patient abuse? Can you hurry up and heal it? _Assuming of course,_ that cuts such as these do fall under your healing capability."

Touché.

"Well, they obviously don't fall under _your_ healing capability so I wouldn't be so quick to snap out like that," Sakura paused as a sudden thought hit her "Why _do _you want it healed so badly?"

He rolled his eyes and re arranged his face into a mock pout.

"It hurts," he whined sarcastically.

"I wouldn't expect you, of all people, to rush to the hospital at three in the morning because you have a few little-"

"I think you'll find they're quite deep-"

"LITTLE cuts. I've known you to refuse to come here after missions. You're just trying to make sure I have work right?" She looked at him with a smile.

"And I think you will find it's difficult to train when one has several lacerations to their general upper appendages."

"Once again, I think _you_ will find the hospital isn't closed in the morning...Or at least, later in it anyway," She informed him remembering the time.

He didn't answer.

"Well?" She nagged.

"I'm busy later," He snarled at her.

"Fiiiiine," She told him and gathered chakra to her fingertip to begin her work "You're about the most interesting patient I've had tonight anyway. I just can't believe it really," She told him working on the nearest and deepest cut "This is the second week of my holiday and suddenly I get a call 'Sakura, we need someone for the next night shift'. You're lucky really. The only one who receives my ministrations tonight who _isn't _drunk..."

"I know, and for the next week," He told her impatiently.

"I'm just so annoyed; so much for relaxation- What do you mean you know?"

Hyuuga Neji stuttered for the first time in his life.

"I...I saw your timetable, in the reception."

"Neji, I just said I'm on holiday. I don't _have_ a timetable."

"Naruto told me." He told her quickly.

"When?"

"This morning, I mean, yesterday morning."

"Naruto, yes, funny you should mention him. I wonder how he's finding the weather in Suna." She glared at him.

His mouth opened, then closed slowly.

"And you Neji, were around this morning too right?" She questioned triumphantly.

"I was just...I needed to-" His high check bones that showed his noble heritage almost as much as his eyes were stained with pink.

She dropped his hand and leaned towards him as she lowered her voice seductively.

"Hyuuga Neji, were you trying to find out when I was working?"

"What?" He answered suddenly defensive "So I could injure myself?"

"You're the one that's here this early in the morning in your...pajamas." She said standing upright again.

"Don't be absurd."

"You're not leaving me much choice...stalker. You know, I actually have some boys at the academy who try this sort of thing too you know."

He stood up angrily.

"I was checking to see when you were working to find out when I could pass by your house and see you!" He said still slightly red "This..." He waved his hand obviously trying to think of a word that would sufficiently describe the catastrophe "Misfortune is purely coincidental I assure you."

"You wanted to visit me?" she asked quietly.

"Is that a problem? Are you unfamiliar with the idea of guests because this is how you treat all the people you know?"

"Of course it's a problem! You've never done that before!"

"I will keep that in mind if I ever decide to try and call again then if my company will not be appreciated!" She couldn't tell if he was more embarrassed or angry.

"Don't be ridiculous Neji; I'd be worried if anyone I knew had had some sort of a...personality transplant."

"I'd hardly call one gesture a personality transplant!"

"When it's a friendly social gesture coming from you I would! Either that or I would have to expect you had some sort of, malevolent alternate motive upon visiting."

He gazed at her for a long moment. She wouldn't call it a glare; his face was left too blank to display any emotion.

"Of course, I apologise for marring the definition you have me listed under."

"Are you sure that glass didn't get your head as well?" She asked innocently raising an eyebrow.

"What?" His un-maimed hand flew to his forehead as though he was expecting to find a gaping wound there. When no bloodied hole was discovered he glared at her, fingers still protectively blocking his brow.

"Neji, incase it escaped your notice, I slandered your abilities," Sakura told him as she sat on the bed. Reluctantly he joined her and Sakura clutched the sheet as the mattress dipped under his weight and she slid towards him.

"I'm aware, have I once again failed to meet the requirements you've obviously preset on my personality?" He answered calmly, his previous emotions removed from his demeanor entirely.

"No, it's just, I didn't think you were one to take it so easily."

"What else am I supposed to do exactly? It's your own choice to form such opinions and perhaps you're correct anyway."

"Oh, I don't know," She glanced slyly at him as he gazed in the opposite direction but returned her face to an expression of angelic innocence when he turned back to see why she had stopped speaking. "You could always prove me wrong."

He looked at her questioningly oblivious to her motives.

"I mean if you, the Hyuuga genius, _really_ believed that you could somehow bring yourself to succeed in your difficult task and sometime call upon me, I would have no choice but to accept that I was mistaken..."

His head moved to one side slightly in such a way that she felt like he was trying to comprehend what she was saying from a completely different angle. Her gaze flitted away to rest on the pale wall opposite them.

"And I know how much you like proving me wrong. The only problem there would be, I'm not the most intelligent person-"

"Sakura," He looked horrified "If you took offense to what I said earlier you must know I meant nothing of it-" She shook her head to silence him. He took what she said so seriously sometimes.

"I was just going to say that I might not quite understand that you've won, or at least were right, if you only visit me once. I mean, accidents happen right? So it would be beneficial for you to drop by whenever is convenient to truly convince me. Maybe bring something too..."

Neji looked completely baffled.

"I like chocolate and flowers," She prompted him helpfully.

A second later his puzzled look had morphed into an accomplished smirk.

"If that's the way things would work it would only make sense you would try to take your revenge. Disprove one of my claims."

"Really, and what claim would that be?"

To her surprise he reached over her shoulder and caressed one of her short pink locks that framed her face. She shivered as his hand brushed her cheek.

"Say, if I were to mention that there was no chance that you would accompany me out to dinner on Saturday," He breathed with his fingers tracing carefully down the back of her neck.

Trust him to use her own pick up lines against her.

She struggled and searched herself for the witty comeback she should have. Apparently her sense of humour was evacuating as the space that separated her from Neji rapidly declined.

Sakura let out a tiny mewing sound instead.

He was still smirking when his lips met hers. Her stomach convulsed not unpleasantly and she tried not to faint or throttle him with unrepressed ecstasy. Instead she allowed herself to move her hands, which had previously been resting placidly in her lap as they had talked, to his shoulders where they rested comfortably on Neji's warm skin from just under the collar of his Yukata.

He took immediate advantage of her movements as his own hands slid down to her lower back giving him a perfect vantage point to pull her closer despite his 'injuries'. Pulling himself away from her mouth he kissed the end of her nose and she blinked in response before she rested her cheek against his.

"Saturday? You're on," She whispered.

The door flew open.

"Is there a problem? I thought it might be something serious you've been so lo-oooh." The nurse from earlier spun to face the other direction as her palm slapped over her mouth loudly.

Neji quickly chose his reputation over his charm and gentleman's responsibilities and consequentially the woman half sitting on him. Sakura hit the floor painfully after he had shoved her away in his panic but she only reacted by snatching at one of Neji's legs and swinging it roughly.

"It seems to be in working order," She coughed still shaken and out of breath.

"Right, I just wanted it checked," He answered her gruffly.

"It's okay! I'm leaving!" The other medic quickly told them as she struggled with the door handle.

"No! Stay and tend to this err, clients hand," Sakura told her well aware of how flustered she sounded. She had decided to follow her instincts in this case.

Run.

She stormed out of the door. Neji would survive under the other woman's care.

Besides, there was always Saturday.

A/N: Okay, there is a point behind this. The NejiSaku community here (and pretty much everywhere else) has been a little dead lately so as a part of the c2 .:NejiSaku : Destined to Be:. (See my profile for more information) a challenge has been set involving 60 themes. It's very open and you can include as many themes as you desire and present them in any format.

The themes however abstractly included with this attempt were: Comfort, Hospital, Interruption, Kiss and Glass. They were chosen at random.

If you would like any more information, a copy of the complete list or a challenge involving the themes please contact me in a review or a pm. I'd be happy to help as much as I can.

Speaking of reviews, maybe if you're going to ask about those things you could include somewhere a quick mention of what you thought of this? I'd appreciate it!

Thank you for reading and sorry about any mistakes.

Nut2

COMPLETE


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